Sarah
Taylor-Watts
Senior Fundraising Consultant
If there’s one word that describes my approach to fundraising it would be ‘personal.’
Some might call it ‘old school’, but I firmly believe that strong, face-to-face relationships are what drive meaningful philanthropy. For me, it’s about finding the connections and making givers feel part of the family.
I started my career in sales and marketing, working in the charitable lottery industry. It was a commercial grounding in what is, at heart, a charitable income stream – building mass participation, understanding what motivates people to give regularly, and doing so at scale.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, that same impulse to maximise reach inspired my work with a local charity and an award-winning national butcher. Together, we provided 18,000 meals for homeless people over the course of lockdown. The initiative depended on establishing and leveraging relationships across the food industry, from national supermarkets through to local restaurants, and on persuading each of them that they had a part to play.
Much of my recent work has been with organisations across Warwickshire and the West Midlands, where I’ve been able to develop an intimate understanding of the local philanthropic landscape and the networks that sit behind it. Importantly, it’s taught me that good fundraising is inherently personal and there’s nothing more powerful than sitting down with someone and sharing your enthusiasm for a project or cause that you really care about.